


There's nothing sexy about playing a trombone

by Chokopoppo



Category: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, high concept nerd shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 18:46:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14754267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chokopoppo/pseuds/Chokopoppo
Summary: Tess would really, really like it if Edgar would just get laid and shut up about his dick already. Edgar would really, really like it if he could get laid and shut up about his dick already.The long-awaited semi-sequel to Monster Dick.





	There's nothing sexy about playing a trombone

**Author's Note:**

> [DON'T SAY THAT YOU LOVE ME](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7U7XtYeq8c)
> 
> It's probably about time I wrote a sequel to Monster Dick, which is like, indisputably my most successful JtHM fic. Unfortunately, I wrote this instead. It's not quite the same universe, but the vibe should be the same. I guess it _could_ be a sequel. It's more of a sister fic, closer to what I wanted Monster Dick to be when I was writing it. Back then, I didn't know enough about college to write about it. But I'm older, and wiser, and a little bit sexier. 
> 
> If you want to read Monster Dick, you can find it [here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3209828) If you want to yell at me on tumblr for being a nasty boy, you can find me [here.](http://www.chokopoppo.tumblr.com) Enjoy, perverts.

“Sweet Jesus,” Edgar says to Tess on Thursday, apropos of nothing, “I can’t _not_ fuck him.”

It’s one week until their project is due, and the group was _supposed_ to meet up in the quad to work on their counterpoint midterm, but 50% of the team apparently decided to dip. No fucking surprise—the two of them have been carrying this garbage group for the better part of a semester. They’ve been scribbling away and replaying the same thirty seconds of some random cantata off Tess’ shitty laptop speakers for close to an hour now. She’d be happy for the change in topic, except this bullshit project is worth a quarter of her fucking grade.

“You really _can,_ dude,” she says, aware that this line of reasoning is a non-starter, “no one is _making_ you.”

“He just walked by,” Edgar says fervently, “he was wearing a shirt with a sacbut on it.”

“I don’t even know what that _is,_ ” she says. Maybe if she focuses on this homework, she can ignore the trainwreck of a conversation she’s stuck on. Who _wrote_ this cantus firmus, Fux? She’s going to invent a fucking time machine so she can go back to 1730 and strangle him to death herself.

Edgar gives a forlorn, lovestruck sigh. “It’s an archaic trombone,” he says, “they’re the dumbest instruments human minds have ever conjured up in our collective fevered dreams. They’re so stupid.”

“Does he _play_ trombone?”

“He _does,_ ” Edgar says, “it’s the _worst_ instrument in the world. Why couldn’t I have fallen for a nice girl with a french horn?”

His head sinks onto the table in despair. After a moment, he lifts his head back up, removes his glasses, places them delicately on his theory textbook, and lowers his head back down.

She gives him the most piteous look she can manage. Then, thoroughly out of sympathy, she asks, “what’s a minor sixth above the diminished seventh of Dominant?”

“B natural,” he mumbles from the desk. “Remember to lower it. Check the key. Do you think he knows I exist?”

“You literally student direct him in concert band, you fucking freak,” she says, “are you saying you’ve never even talked to him?” Is this progression going to force her into a melodic augmented fourth? Do they have to start over _again?_ She’s going to lose her fucking mind.

“I’ve _tried,_ ” Edgar mumbles, “he’s just so intimidating. He’s always in a group. He’s too cool for me.”

“He’s an undergrad who plays trombone. In what world is anything about him ‘cool’?”

“He’s also drum major.”

“That only accentuates my point. Look,” Tess says, “if I agree to talk to him for you, will you shut up and help? I can’t afford to fail this class again.”

He lifts his head, and Tess stifles a sigh. Of _course_ that’s all it took. “Really?”

“I swear it on year seven of this four-year degree,” she says, holding a palm up in mock-salute. “Now, would you hit play on that cantata again? The progression’s _still_ wrong. We need to start from scratch.”

~~

Here’s a list of things Edgar Vargas knows about Jimmy Euridge:

1\. He’s the youngest drum major their marching band has ever had at age nineteen, second year.  
2\. Due to an incident involving a trombone slide and another human’s skull, he and Dillion Abernath aren’t allowed to be near each other in practice formations anymore.  
3\. On more than one occasion, he has left food items in the four-point for multiple days, just to see if anyone would steal them before they went rotten. (No one did.)  
4\. He also screams through his mouthpiece in the four-point at least once a week, apparently just to see who’s around and who can handle the pressure.  
5\. He once came back from band camp with a chest tattoo.  
6\. Edgar knows that because he takes his shirt off a lot during marching practice, no matter the weather.  
7\. Like…a _lot._  
8\. One of those shirts says ‘R.I.P. Sacbut’, which would render him wholly unfuckable to anyone with taste.  
9\. He’s also shredded, in that lean, fatless way. Not that that matters. Because it doesn’t.  
10\. Okay, it matters a _little._

And that’s it. Ten things. Enough to make him Edgar’s hero, but absolutely not enough to make conversation with.

Luckily, it turns out he doesn’t have to. The first time he ends up in a proper conversation with Jimmy, it’s at a house party his roommates throw without consulting him. No environment is louder than a cramped townhouse stuffed full of music majors and their coked up plus-ones.

Here’s the progression of events that takes Edgar from a solitary wallflower filling slowly with Jungle Juice to semi-consenting conversational partner:

Edgar is quietly minding his own business, drinking out of a red solo cup and wondering how long he has to wait before it’s socially acceptable to retreat back to his room, when a furious cacophony at the front door announces the arrival of pre-gaming band geeks. Among the throng, he catches a glimpse of well-gelled black hair, hears that patented, raucous Euridge laughter. His stomach flips. He downs half his drink.

The chorus kids break out in a joyous refrain of a Scarlatti Motet (each in their own key, of course), drowning out the melody of the EDM blasting out of the speakers in the living room, but unable to shake away the thudding bass vibrating through the floor. Tess sweeps up at his side, looking pretty but mostly looking blasted, and elbows him hard between the third and fourth rib. “Hey,” she hollers over the racket, “look who showed up! I _wonder_ who invited him!”

She looks very proud of herself. Also, very unsteady on her feet. Edgar sighs. “Did you invite him?”

“You _know_ it!” She crows. “You’re _welcome,_ by the way. I said I would talk to him and here he is! I talked you up _big,_ you know,” she says, “but I’ll go handle some finishing touches, just in case.”

“Finishing—? Hey, Tess, wait—“

Too late. As Edgar reaches out to grab her by the shoulder, she slips away in the throng. He can see her head bobbing through the sea of drunk, idiot undergrads, a crop of dark hair tottering slightly on poorly chosen heels and making a beeline directly for Jimmy. Oh, shit. Oh, _shit._

Running mostly on adrenaline and partially on grain alcohol, Edgar pushes his way forward in a last ditch attempt to stop her. But his height works to his detriment, as per fucking usual, basically. He’s barely through the doorway when someone hip-checks him, and someone else shoulder-checks him, and between the jostling, he ends up pinned in the corner, where he’s treated to an agonizingly good view of whatever shit Tess is about to pull.

The chorus kids make it to the end of whatever bullshit they were belting and erupt into self-congratulatory whoops and hollers. Edgar can’t hear over it, but he sees Tess lean in—Jimmy bends down to listen—his brows furrow, he cracks that golden, shit-eating grin, turns to say something back—

And then Tess, or should he say _Judas,_ points directly at the corner Edgar’s trapped in.

Jimmy’s gaze snaps towards him, and that golden-boy joviality melts under a hungry, darkening face. His smile slips away until there’s nothing but a canine poking at his bottom lip. His eyes are unreadable.

Next to him, Tess beams and waves and gives two big thumbs-ups. Edgar is going to _kill_ her.

Faster than Edgar can even _think_ the word ‘escape’, Jimmy is sawing his way through the crowd, upsetting people’s drinks and knocking flutists to the ground left and right. He lands pressed against Edgar’s chest, an arm on either side of him, pinning him to the wall.

“Hey,” he purrs. Belatedly, Edgar notices he’s wearing black lipstick.

“Uh,” Edgar says. “Hey.”

“You’re Edgar, right?” He asks. Asks? Was that a question? It didn’t _feel_ like a question.

“Uh,” Edgar says again. “Look, whatever Tess told you—“

“Hey, don’t go getting embarrassed on me,” he says, “it’s always been a dream of mine to be a teacher’s pet.”

“You—you—okay, you know I’m not actually your teacher,” he says, grasping at the only certainty he has in this conversation and holding on for dear life, “I’m just studying ensemble conducting, I’m not a TA or anything. I can’t—I mean, I don’t handle your grades, there’s nothing…illegal…” he trails off. Jimmy is blinking at him, which on the _one_ hand is showing off a pair of masterfully done smoky eye looks, but on the _other_ hand makes him look like a dumbass.

“Oh,” he says, frowning. “I just figured - but you do all the conducting.”

“Yeah, because I’m a _grad student._ In _conducting._ Did you really—I went to high school with Tess—“ Edgar cuts himself off, presses a palm into his face. “Seriously, I’m not—I’m only twenty-three—“

“Okay, but can we _say_ that you’re a teacher,” Jimmy says, and the sleazeball filter is back on in full force, “because that’s…kind of a _thing_ for me.”

“Ugh,” Edgar says, as Jimmy waggles his eyebrows suggestively, “I’m way too drunk for this conversation.”

“And _I’m_ too sober,” he retorts, and plucks the solo cup out of Edgar’s unresisting fingers. Against any human’s better judgement, he lowers the jungle juice by the gobful, swallows—then involuntarily jerks his head back like he’s been kicked in the teeth. “Hhholy _shit,_ ” he manages, through what has to be the worst scorched-earth of a windpipe this side of campus, “Delacruz brews it fucking _rough._ I gotta cop this off her shelf.”

“I’m not young or cool enough to know what that means,” Edgar says fervently. “Are you okay?”

Jimmy barks a laugh. “I’ve had rougher down the hatch,” he says. “Speaking of, what’s your deal? Tess says you’re DTF, is that you? Like, we good? You good? Can I suck your dick or what, what’s up with that?”

“What—“ Edgar chokes on his own words. Is it hot in here? It feels hot in here. “Is this—I mean—are you fucking with me right now?”

Jimmy actually looks offended. “What am I, some jock in high school? No, man, I’m not fucking with you.”

“Sorry, I just—“

“Nah, I get it,” he says, “but I hear you’re packing, and no lie, I am fucking _thirsty_ for it, dude.” He winks. Edgar wants to roll his eyes—but before he can, he feels, rather than sees, the fingers run up his inseam and trace over his cock.

“There’s condoms in my room,” he says, and grabs Jimmy by the elbow.

Technically, Edgar lives in the basement, and double-technically, the basement is always off-limits during these house parties. In practicality, there is literally always someone trying to get nasty on his real, actual bed that he has to sleep in. It can be an awkward situation, of course, but Edgar has mastered the art of tactfully removing them from his space.

“Get the _fuck_ out of my room,” he hollers, bolting down the stairs two at a time. The couple tangled up on his mattress untangles nigh-instantaneously and scrambles away from him.

“Hey, Jimmy,” the girl says, and wiggles her fingers at him as her boyfriend pulls her up the stairs.

“ _Lock the door behind you,_ ” Edgar yells after them, half a millisecond before Jimmy grabs him by the collar and hurls him forcefully into the futon. His back is going to kill him later. There’s not a shred of give in that fucking brick.

Jimmy’s crawling after him, kissing him, hot and wet and invasive, all tongue and no teeth. Edgar buries his fingers in his hair, in his jacket lapel, jerks furiously at the first article of clothing like a man on a mission. Jimmy groans, breaks away, tears his own coat off.

“Who the fuck was that,” Edgar snaps, jerks his head towards the long-since-retreated couple. Jimmy grins, all shark’s teeth and bloodless lips.

“Aw, babe, are you already jealous?” Apparently forgoing the grand tradition of give-and-take, Jimmy whips his shirt off while he’s up, because of course he does. Why wouldn’t he. This might as well be the marching field. Edgar would be annoyed, except he can _really_ see Jimmy’s muscles working under his skin from here, and his tattoo looks like high art in the low light.

“Are you just trying to cover for something?” Edgar wraps his fingers in his belt loops and pulls him horizontal again. “You don’t actually know, do you?”

Jimmy kisses him again, then pulls his head to the side by the hair and bites his neck like some kind of wannabe vampire, he’s _such_ a _tool_ —Edgar moans, unabashed, runs his hands up over Jimmy’s hips to grab his ass. “Why the fuck would I know her,” Jimmy hisses in his ear, “dunno how she even knows me—“

“She’s in concert band,” Edgar says, snatches his glasses off his face and throws them haphazardly over the other side of the bed, “and you’re the fucking drum major, you trounced up little shit—“

“Fucking, so what,” Jimmy says, voice pouring out in a breathless rush, “so I’m supposed to know everyone, there’s fucking eighty people—“

Edgar grabs him by the back of the head and drags him back into a kiss. There’s a gasp (and an unacceptable volume of tongue, by the way), and then he can feel Jimmy grinding down against him. He runs dry, hot hands along the boy’s ribcage, traces fingers over the sides of his tattoo. It’s some dumb dragon design or something, he’s not quite sure. Most of it is green. He has the opportunity to look at it up close, and instead he’s letting this moron suck hickeys into his neck? The audacity—he rolls them over, relishes the startled little moan that forces its way out of Jimmy’s mouth.

“You literally never shut up,” Edgar hisses, and jerks his head down to bite the skin over his ribs. Jimmy’s voice pitches up in a desperate squeak, his hips bucking up into Edgar’s chest. “Figures you wouldn’t know when to quit with the small talk, I’m just glad the music is louder than your fucking—garbage mouth—“

“Strong words for the son of a bitch halfway into my pants,” Jimmy says, giggling hysterically, “come on, you getting lost down there?”

“There’s fucking six buttons,” he snarls, “who the fuck needs six buttons, they’re fucking _pants_ , are you worried your dick’s gonna run off?”

“With you looking like that?” Jimmy says, running his palms over his chest like a fucking exhibitionist, which he probably is, the little freak—stupid fucking pants— “absolutely, you choice piece of ass. You gonna blow me or what?”

“I’m still wearing all my clothes, by the way,” Edgar says, jerking at the last button until it just gives up and pulls apart, “you selfish son of a bitch. If you give fucked up head, I’m going to personally victimize you in marching band for the rest of the semester.”

Jimmy shifts his hips up to assist Edgar in wriggling his stupid skinny jeans off his practically nonexistent ass. “I mean, noted, except I came out the womb giving head that’ll change your personal life philosophy, so like, there’s basically no pressure on me here— _hhholy shit,_ ” he breathes, and twists his fingers in Edgar’s hair as he swallows him down.

It’s not something he likes to advertise, but Edgar’s pretty good at this. He had a wild time in undergrad. He’ll tell you about it sometime, you know?

Knees crook over his shoulders, a thigh bumps his ear. Jimmy’s cock isn’t really anything special, all things considered—it’s about the size you’d expect, it’s cut, and it’s a little less sweaty than Edgar was expecting. But it’s heavy against his tongue, twitching and hard, and somewhere above him Jimmy is whispering a desperate “ _holyfuckholyfuckholyfuck_ ”. Fingers pull against his hair like he’s getting scalped. He opens his throat, dips down until his nose is flat against the hair and muscle of his stomach, and swallows. The noise Jimmy makes is unreal.

Edgar’s not stupid, okay, he knows bravado when he hears it, he knows meaningless flirting and worthless charm when it wriggles its way in one ear and out the other. He knows he’s just flesh to this kid, something hot and sweating and ready to give, but the way those ankles scramble at his back, kicking at the hollows between his shoulder blades in dull thumps, the reedy wheezing as Jimmy tries to pull enough oxygen into his lungs—he licks a long, sloppy stripe from root to head with the flat of his tongue. If he’s here as a wet mouth and an aching cock, he can at least _ace_ it.

“Vargas, shit,” Jimmy gasps, “fucking, get up here before I fucking blow it, come on, I don’t want to waste this by coming on your face—“

Edgar pulls off with a pop and a kiss. “That’s an option?”

There’s a ragged little moan in response. “Get fucking naked already,” he says, and plants a foot square on Edgar’s shoulder, pushing him away, “there’s no way I’m going back up those stairs without getting your dick in me at _least_ once.”

Edgar’s torn for about four seconds. His mouth is wet and his tongue feels hot and heavy, and there’s something so tempting about the pre beading at the head of Jimmy’s cock, about pushing that stupid foot off his arm, grabbing this boy by the knees and _forcing_ him apart, taking what he wants and pulling him into pieces—and then he makes the mistake of letting his eyes skim up, getting a glimpse of Jimmy splayed out, pink and flushed and glittering with perspiration. Chest heaving, arms akimbo, fingers twisted in his own hair, bottom lip swollen and reddening. A vision of Salome, of something draped in gauze and summer air, something untouchable and dirty and pristine and animal all at once.

“Condoms are in the top drawer,” he decides, and Jimmy twists across the futon, scrabbles at the bedside table while Edgar tears off his own clothes like the cotton fibers burn him. He runs a knuckle along the underside of his dick thoughtfully, then crawls forward to cage Jimmy against the mattress and snatch the foil square out of his hands.

“I could’ve just passed it—” Jimmy starts to say, then stops. His eyes focus down, widen. Relishing the attention a little more than necessary, Edgar sits back on his heels, knees spread pointedly, and lets him watch as he rolls the condom down a little too slowly. “Holy shit,” Jimmy says.

Edgar grins.

“I mean, holy shit,” he repeats, “how the fuck’d you fit that in a pair of _Levi’s?_ ”

Before he can say anything else, Edgar surges forward, pressing him into the mattress and licking a hot stripe along his collarbone. Jimmy’s moan cracks like thunder in a gale, his chest arching up into the naked body above him. This is what Edgar wanted, this is how he wanted it—he might just be some dumb, anonymous John to this boy, another face in a sea of conquests, but _just this second_ , he’s the only thing in the room that matters, and Jimmy is begging for him like a drug.

“Come on, come on,” Jimmy whines, voice tripping over something Edgar doesn’t recognize and can’t look at too closely, “just get inside me, I need you inside me—“

“Hold on,” Edgar says, more delicately than he can really manage. He traces his fingers down the back of Jimmy’s thigh, relishes the shiver that runs through his body, “don’t I need to get you opened up first?”

“Dude, no, I’m on like fifteen poppers,” he says, “I got fucked up for you, baby, I got fucked up for _this_ , now hurry up and tear me _apart._ ”

His breath catches somewhere between his lungs and his throat. “Well,” he says, hoarsely, “if you insist.”

When Edgar fucks into him, Jimmy makes this almost agonized noise, like he’s being struck in the stomach. It sounds painful, but the look on his face is all ecstasy, eyes hazy and focused on something far away. As he picks up the pace, rattling into him like a machine, what few words he was clutching onto fall away from his mouth. The air between them fills with broken off pleas and the wet sound of contact, flesh on flesh. Jimmy is one big exposed nerve, a flat expanse of pale and flushing skin, not quite here and not quite gone.

Edgar bends his head forward into the crook of Jimmy’s neck and bites into his flesh. He yelps, legs thrashing against him, hands scrabbling at his neck, at his back, at his head—and then Edgar is grabbed by the hair and pulled back, just a fraction of an inch, to his cheek. When he looks, Jimmy is staring him dead in the eye.

There’s safety in being nothing, there’s comfort in being nothing—the way Jimmy looks at him is burning through him, stripping him down to his bare bones, and he aches for the assurance of nothing. “You’re so good,” he whispers breathlessly, breath ghosting over Edgar’s ear, “I dream about this—I need you, I love—“

Edgar grabs him by the throat. “Shut up,” he says desperately, and under his fingers, he feels more than hears the moan in response. “Don’t—just tell me that you want me, don’t—“

Jimmy chokes against his hand, gasping for air as the hand on his windpipe pulls away. “Edgar,” he says, and Edgar’s heart stammers in his chest. “Edgar, please, I want you and I wanted you and I—fuck—“

“Fuck,” Edgar agrees, grabs Jimmy’s cock, and wrings him out as he comes with a cry. Most of it spatters across his own chest over his tattoo in a mockery of Jackson Pollock, but some of it rubs off on the dark skin of Edgar’s torso. He works him through it with his hand and his hips until his shuddering gives way to jerking shivers. When he moves to pull out, Jimmy’s ankles lock behind his ass and pull him back in. “What are you—“

“You haven’t come yet, right?” Jimmy asks.

“I could use my hand,” Edgar says, “aren’t you oversensitive? I don’t _actually_ want to hurt you.”

“It’s fine,” Jimmy says breathlessly, “I’m so high, I can’t tell—come on, use me, come inside me,” he says, reaching above his head to grasp at the edge of the futon, body stretched and taut and spattered in cum. Edgar sees stars.

“Fuck, okay, hold on,” he manages, shifts his hips, grabs Jimmy by the thighs, and hits him like a steam piston. Through a haze of sweat in his eyes and the salt of it in his mouth, through the pounding of blood in his body and the burn between his legs and the pained stretch of rarely used muscles pushed into overdrive, he can just make out Jimmy pushing fingers into his own mouth, staring back at him through the heat. There’s a flash of pink across his knuckle, his tongue between dark painted lips—a flash of teeth against his own flesh—

Edgar comes with a noise he’d never admit to, rough and long, leaving his lips trembling as his mouth gapes open, only half aware of the way Jimmy’s watching him and totally unwilling to meet his eye. He slumps over the warm body in his bed, legs shaking, and pulls out almost as an afterthought, cock hanging wet between his legs.

Jimmy catches his breath while Edgar pinches the condom off, knots it, and chucks it in the trash. “Shit, okay,” he says after a moment, as Edgar comes to rest by his shoulder, “Devi was not exaggerating. Fuck.”

“Devi? What did Devi say?”

“That you have a monster dick,” Jimmy says, “which is fucking true. I’m gonna be bowlegged for _days_. Where’d you learn to deepthroat like that?”

“Undergrad,” Edgar says. “I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

Jimmy looks like he’s about to say something, but before he can, there’s the familiar hum of a phone vibrating from someone’s pants pockets somewhere on the floor, and the blast of a song about sucking cock in hell immediately identifies the owner. He rolls over onto his stomach, cursing, to reach over the side of the mattress and hunt the offending technology down while Edgar grabs his glasses.

“What’s up,” Jimmy says into the phone, and then, decidedly more aggravated, adds “oh, go _piss in your mother,_ ” and hangs up. Edgar blinks at him.

“Nice ringtone.”

Jimmy huffs angrily. “Look, I’m really sorry, I gotta bounce,” he says, getting to his feet, “I’m the DD, and one of the idiots at the last house party who tried to ditch us needs a pickup.”

“ _You’re_ the DD?” Edgar struggles into a sitting position. “You’re literally high _right now._ ”

“Yeah, but I’m way less high than everyone else in that car,” he says, already struggling back into his shirt. He glances back at Edgar, just eyes skirting over him, then apparently makes some decision. “Here,” he says, and throws his phone directly at Edgar’s face.

“Are you _trying_ to break my glasses?”

“What, cause it’s my fault you can’t catch?” Jimmy’s eyes are already on the ground again. He kicks his way back into his jeans. “Give me your number. I’ll text you.”

~~

“Well, he’s not going to text me,” Edgar says sourly, clicking F4 to check the Canvas page for grades on the midterm project. Tess watches him glumly. “And I’m not going to be one of those idiots who just sits around waiting for the phone to buzz.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing right now?”

“No, it’s—no,” Edgar says, looking properly guilty when she glances up to catch him with his hand halfway to his phone, “I was just…going to give this to you to watch. To keep me from. Uh.”

“Obsessing?”

He hangs his head. “Yes,” he admits. “Will you do it?”

Tess shrugs. She’s got University Choir in two hours, and then Women’s Chorus two hours after that, which is absolutely not enough time to go home and relax after lecture hall this morning. Besides, the tickets in the pay parking lot max out at fourteen bucks, and she’s already sailed past that marker, so she was planning on staying here _anyway._ “Yes, of course,” she says, and takes the phone out of his hand. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

“Don’t you have like fourteen pieces of rep you need learned in two weeks for Mock Juries?”

“Eh, they’re in German,” she says, “except for the ones in Italian and French. My little _buddy_ needs help, and that’s excuse enough for me to completely ignore everything I was supposed to be doing. You want to do your nails? I have some nail polish in my backpack for reasons I really don’t want to go into right now. I stole it from my ex-girlfriend after she melted a bunch of my lipstick. She’s such a bitch.”

“Wow, sounds like you _did_ want to go into that.” Edgar sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I knew this would happen, I knew I was being stupid, getting that thirsty for some undergrad…and now I’m just waiting to go grey and sere. I’ll never fuck again, Tess. That was my last will and testicle.”

“Okay, first off, gross,” Tess says. She’s known Edgar for too long to ever want to think about the practicalities of him having sex, save in the general, wingman-ing sense of getting him some. “But secondly, and I never thought this phrase would come out of my mouth, maybe you’re thinking too little of Jimmy. Sure, he’s a weird band-kid of a playboy—you guys are weird, by the way, all you band kids are weird and I’m not about it—but he wasn’t going to come to that party until I mentioned you were going to be there. Before I even told him you were interested in him.”

Edgar barely looks up. “So?”

“ _So,_ he came to see _you,_ idiot,” she says, “he wanted to see you there. He knew who you were, he was interested before, and he showed up on the off-chance that he could see you, specifically. Jimmy’s a shitty kid, but he likes you.”

Edgar stares at her plaintively. “How do you know for sure?”

She looks down at the screen of his phone. “Because thirty seconds ago, he sent you a text.”

“ _Fucking what?_ ” Edgar says, and lunges for the phone.

“It’s a picture of his penis.”

“ _Give me_ that!”


End file.
